On Thurdsay, Mar 18, a protest occured in Washington DC against the US’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, which prevents openly gay (or outed) persons serving in the military. After a DADT rallty, protestors marched to the White House where Lt. Dan Choi and Capt James Pietrangelo handcuffed themselves to the W.H. fence… until they were arrested.

While they both no longer appear in the Guinness Book of World Records (here’s the new record holder), two rainbow flags created by Gilbert Baker have held the title of “Largest Flag in the world.”

The first of these record holding rainbow flags was sewn into existence in 1994. Baker produced a mile-long (1.6km) flag for New York’s Stonewall 25 march, in remembrance of the 25th anniversary of the riots. This massive flag was 30 feet wide, and was carried in the pride parade by almost 10,000 people.

The mile long flag’s title of largest flag was nullified in 2003 with the production of the Rainbow 25’s sea-to-sea flag. At 1 ¼ miles (2 km) long, this massive flag pays tribute to the creation of the first pride flag on its 25th anniversary. Unfurled on June 15, 2003 in Key West, Florida, the flag ran the length of Key West’s Duval Street, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

After the event, this historic flag was divided into pieces and shared with pride organizations around the world, including as I was recently informed with ProGay Philippines – congrats!

I tried to find a video clip showing the flag, but I didn’t have much luck. However, I did find a documentary that was produced about the whole Key West event … (available on Amazon, here.)

“In Key West, nobody cares who you want to sleep with.” “You have gays, straights, Europeans, Latin Americans, Blacks, Cubans, and White folks all living together on a 2 by 4 mile island. When you put people that close together, they tend to find ways to get along.” And on this amazing island only 90 miles from Cuba, this very diverse community celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Rainbow Flag by stretching the longest Rainbow Flag in history — 8000 feet in all -from one end of the island to the other.”
– Key West: City of Colors, DVD description

Tomorrow, Jan. 15, ’10, China is going to be having their very first gay pageant. The Mr. Gay China pageant will be held in Beijing. This is quite impressive, considering homosexuality in China is often reported to be a taboo topic not to be discussed. I’ve noticed mainland china’s views on homosexuality are quite different than here in Taipei, which hosts Asia’s largest gay pride parade (see pics). Despite the expected 30 million Chinese who are thought to be homosexuals, the topic of equal human rights for gay individuals is rarely discussed, and the government’s stance is said to be one of “no approval, no disapproval, and no promotion.”

The Mr. Gay China event is being sponsored by Gayographic, currently Beijing’s only gay PR and event management company, and will consist of 8 young men competing for a chance to participate in the Mr. Gay World competition held later this year in Oslo, Norway. As Ben Zhang, co-founder of Gayographic, puts it “We hope to send out a message to the Chinese public that the gay community is here and it’s healthy, sexy, trendy,”

The Walk with Pride Project

This is a gay issue.
This is a straight issue.
This is a human rights issue.

Walk With Pride (WWP) is a project to photograph and document gay pride parades around the globe. Our aim is to promote pride, empathy, and understanding on an international level, while highlighting the similarities and differences in gay rights and gay culture around the world.

A national gay rights advocacy group took its state-by-state fight for same-sex marriage equality to a federal court for the first time Tuesday, filing a lawsuit in a bid to force Nevada to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry.